The Motivational Flow of the Creative Entrepreneur

walnuts - pauline mak

In the middle of one of my coaching sessions, I stumbled across a concept I think is worth sharing with you all. My client and I were discussing how ideas become actions and how sometimes our heads tend to get in the way of our progress because we think ourselves right out of the idea.

It’s going to get a little messy after this, so if you have delicate sensibilities, it’s probably best to check out now. I don’t want anyone getting offended by a little tongue-in-cheek references. However, if you can handle a little wit with your wisdom, then let’s continue.

Motivation is a funny thing, as powerful as it is fleeting. One second you can be pumped up from a really great idea, and within a few moments, the luster has worn off and you’re already talking yourself out of it. From my experience, the best way to go from idea to action is a process of letting your mind take a breather while other parts take over. It’s about flow, from one part to another, a process I call: Head, Heart, Guts & Nuts

Head First

All your ideas are valid, but they may not be viable for you. We need to keep our noodles working in order to maintain a steady flow of creative ideas. The more ideas you even consider, the more creative you get with those ideas as you work.

Write everything down and compartmentalize the thoughts into  groups so that you can easily reach out to them later. I use Evernote for this, and it works wonders for all kinds of idea generation. The problem with having tons of ideas written down is filtering them later, but Evernote is pretty good with that too. If you haven’t guessed, I highly recommend Evernote.

Heart Felt

The mind is great for ideas, but it’s also notorious for buzz kill. Your brain will steal your thunder in a hot minute if you let it. Once you have an idea you believe is worthy, it’s important to get your head out of the way and start focusing on the emotion behind your idea. Your idea needs a soul, it needs life, and it gets that from your emotive side.

Take a second and dwell on the possible success of your idea, where you’ll be when the success hits; how will you feel in that moment? Or how will others feel when they get a glimpse of your idea? Imagine a better world because of your idea and hold onto that as further motivation for progress.

Gut Check

Your instinct has almost assuredly already kicked in here. Sometimes your gut instinct works in conjunction with your heart and/or your mind but occasionally  you need to really put it to some true test of intestinal fortitude.

Your idea might scare you. Others might tell you that it will never work, but dig deep into your instinct and try to glimpse what feels right. Sometimes you just know that something is going to work right. Other times you might get the feeling it’s not a worthy effort. You may not want to listen to your gut instinct every time, but if you’re like me, more times than not, your gut is right about things more than your head.

Grow a Pair

None of this idea generation is worth a damn if you’re not willing to put it all on the line and act on that idea. Some ideas are scary as hell, and will test your will, so you need to step up or shut up.

Having the nuts to act on an idea is an exhilarating experience. Do it once and you’ll crave that buzz again and again, testing your strength more each time. Also, don’t think for one second that this is a solely male experience; women can enjoy the feeling just as much. Of course they can’t grab their own pair in triumph once they conquer their idea, but a ceremonious clutching wouldn’t be out of the question, ladies.

The Process in Action

It’s easy to talk about this process, but not always easy to do. Here are a couple examples of how I put this process into action on my own ideas, starting with the plan to write a new book.

  • Head – I have an idea to write a new book about Etsy, but with a straight-forward, no BS approach.
  • Heart – I’m passionate about Etsy, on many levels, so it makes sense I would write about it and share stories with others.
  • Guts – I have a lot of book ideas, but internally, this feels like the one I should be writing first
  • Nuts – Got to put the plan into action. I started writing yesterday, and I will continue writing a little every day until it’s done.

A more relatable idea I had was this blog post. The idea came to me, but I wasn’t sure if I should post it.

  • Head – As I mentioned, the idea for this post came to me while helping a client. When people heard the phrase, they laughed in amusement.
  • Heart – The process, even before the catchy name, is something I’ve done for awhile and I am certain it is a key to my success
  • Guts – Writing this post here was questionable, but something told me inside that said this was going to be a very worthwhile idea.
  • Nuts – Proof is in the pudding.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the point of this post is to share this process so you an implement it as well, but also to get my ideas formulated for what I think will be a much bigger picture later on. I can’t really expand on that just yet, but as soon as I get a better handling on the concept, I’ll let you know what plays out for the future.

[image]

Filed Under: Knowledge Base Tagged With: , , , , ,

John W. Golden Drops Some Diversified Knowledge

John Golden is a well established artist; definitely one of my favorite Etsy purveyors, and a good source of inspiration and information. When I finally decided I needed a little more diversification in my Beach Cities shop, the first person I thought of was John. His work has a strong uniformity, but is also fairly diverse in subject matter.

I sent John a note asking his thoughts on diversity within a shop space, and if he felt diversity was a key element in his success. His insightful response was so solid, I asked if he didn’t mind me sharing it with you. Here are the key points.

  • The tricky thing is to have a niche, but to make it as broad of a niche as possible. My niche came out of a need for art for my kids’ rooms … and I have found some sub-niches within that niche.
  • I try to tie them all together with a consistency of styles (tho I sometimes push that envelope) and kind of a similar “voice” (whether it’s a certain type of humor, affection for something, etc.).
  • If the idea came to me, and it truly interests me, the execution of the idea has potential to fit my stop. If it is something I think would sell, but is not necessarily coming from that true interest in or affection for some aspect of the subject matter or the illustration style, my execution of the idea may be a harder fit for the shop.
  • I think variety of subject matter increases your chances of showing up in searches, and that will increase your presence online.
  • I think too often we think of people finding our online stores and imagine them behaving like someone walking in to a brick and mortar store. If you walked into a store with 400 items you could see all at once, it would seem overwhelming. I believe folks online find us one item at a time, so 400 items may not be as overwhelming, but increases our chance of being seen.
  • I definitely recommend having diversity in your shop if you can make it work within your vision of your shop. I think it has helped with the success of my shop.

Pretty much solidifies what I was initially thinking, but was a bit gun-shy about pushing forward on in my shop. Thanks to John for the insight. I appreciate it and I know some of you will too. Check out John W. Golden’s work on Etsy. Oh, and he’s having a big summer sale, so get in on that stuff before it’s gone.

Filed Under: Knowledge Base Tagged With: , , , , ,

Dropping Some Art Director Knowledge

A friend sent me an email yesterday asking for my insight into the world of automotive publishing. For those that may not know right off, my daytime gig is as an art director for a magazine publishing company specializing in automotive related titles. My friend said her young son is totally nuts over automotive photography and wanted to know if I had any wisdom to share on how to break into the business. My response ended up being a bit lengthy, but good information (IMHO) so I figured it might make a decent post to share here, as non sequitur as it may be. Hopefully someone else will be able to glean something from it.

Hi Becki,

As far as getting into the business, I will say it’s a little dog-eat-dog. There are a LOT of “good” photographers out there trying to get into our magazines, but most of them either aren’t quite up to snuff of they submit images that don’t fit the magazine. There are three things I recommend highly for anyone wanting to shoot for any magazine, not just car books.

  1. Make sure you know exactly what kind of shots the magazine is looking for because each magazine is different in what they like to feature. Some books like more detail shots while others like more shots of the car from different angles. However, don’t be afraid to experiment either. Everyone can shoot a nice front 3/4 shot of a car, but only the best know how to make it look awesome and unique with creative composition.
  2. Practice, practice, practice! And when you’re tired of practicing, practice some more. Know your equipment backwards and forwards, and learn exactly what settings make the best shots in any situation or lighting environment. A lot of this comes with time and experience, but the more you learns early on, the better.
  3. If you have time and there is a local pro available, try to do an apprenticeship. Practicing on your own is good, but the minute you start learning from someone who has been there, your education will grow leaps and bounds. When I got out of school, I thought I was a hot shot designer, but I learned more in my first 2 months of employment than I did my entire time at school. Working with people that know more than you will always make you grow faster. [Read more...]
Filed Under: Knowledge Base Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to Create a Quick and Dirty Animated Banner Ad

Recently, a friend asked me to help her with creating an animated banner ad for her shop. I agreed to give her a quick and dirty tutorial on how to do one in Photoshop, but since I was already creating all the information for her, I figured I’d share with anyone else that might be interested. This post may end up extremely long and may seem like too much work but trust me when I tell you its a fairly easy process. I do, however, recommend that you have at least the basic understanding on how to use Photoshop. If you’ve never used the program before, you might be able to work your way through this, but there are no guarantees.

The first step is to create a new document, of course. Go to FILE in the menu bar and click NEW. Although most banner ads have no business being anywhere close to 500×500 pixels, I made mine this big for two reasons. First, I want you to be able to see this tutorial, so I made it bigger for eyeballs like mine that might have trouble reading at 150 pixels. Second, if I start with a larger banner, I can always go back and reduce the image without any problems. Upsizing a small image in photoshop, especially one at screen resolution, is not recommended. So we start bigger for this reason. Congrats on making it this far, but lots more after the jump.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Knowledge Base Tagged With: , , , ,